the very nature of emulation is that you put your computer into a mode where its trying to use its components to address the dedicated components on the original main board. as such, it all tends to be rather processor heavy.

the emulator takes the program (ROM image) and tells the computer how to run the commands the ROM is addressing via the available hardware..

thats in a nutshell..

the program runs so slow because the various drivers that the emulator needs to properly execute the ROM are either missing, or incomplete, or your computer just doesn't have the ass behind it to run all these functions at once..

in the case of SW trilogy.. the latter is the fault, as the ROM hasn't been fully cracked, it's barely functional, virtually unplayable.. and it's probably going to take a few more generations of MAME before the program is fully available.. even then.. you'll probably need a good deal of ass under your hood.

A PC is not an arcade machine. It does not have the same hardware. Not the same graphics processor, not the same sound hardware, nothing the same. A game ROM contains all of the information that the programmer provided, all that was necessary to make the game work on the original arcade hardware. As a result, it makes lots of assumptions, based on that fact.

1. There are not ROMs "with" or "without" sound. Only emulators that can and can't deal with it.

Unless a PC has a program to look at the game ROM, work out what the arcade sounds would have been and then convert that to what a PC sound card plays, there's no sound. The information is in the ROM (and the specifications of the original arcade hardware), but without that chunk of code, the PC doesn't know what to do with it. All ROMs have all the information in them about a game that they're ever going to have.

2. You need a very fast PC to emulate a game from a supposedly slow arcade machine.

Look at Atari 2600 emulation, for example. The original Atari 2600 main processor ran at a mere 1.16 MHz and had 128 bytes of RAM. To run an Atari 2600 emulator, such as Stella, requires a Pentium class processor (100MHz+, about 100x faster or more) and 16MB+ of RAM (over 100000 times as much). The PC has to pretend to be the Atari 2600's processor, the TIA chip, the RIOT chip, lots of other bits and pieces and at the same time deal with its own operating system (Windows), display, sound, mouse, keyboard, etc.

If the current version of MAME doesn't do sound for a particular game, you'll have to wait for a version that does. A different ROM won't change that. The same goes for any other part of the game i.e. graphics, controls, etc.

If it's running slowly, it's because your PC is too slow for the emulator's requirements. You need a faster PC and / or wait for a "faster" version of the emulator if one is possible and ever written. If the game involves 3D, expect MAME to be _very_ slow; there's some preliminary 3D support but the MAME developers are mainly interested in the earlier 2D games.

Rules of the forum say we can't give you details on where to look for ROMs, etc; you'll have to hunt around the web for websites and torrents and the like.

THANKS!! It all makes sense no. But I thought my laptop was fast enough and powerful enough but it isnt.

Dude re-read my post. Both drivers are listed as "preliminary." That basically means they aren't going to work correctly on any computer. I imagine this will not change on Star Wars Trilogy for a few years.